


Do Serial Killers Eat Tacos, Too?

by Dawnwind



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: M/M, serial killer discussion, taco tuesday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:35:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23231062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawnwind/pseuds/Dawnwind
Summary: It's Edrisa's birthday. What better way to celebrate than talking shop over tacos?
Relationships: Gil Arroyo & Malcolm Bright
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22





	Do Serial Killers Eat Tacos, Too?

Do Serial Killers Eat Tacos, too?  
By Dawnwind

The odor was so evocative, Malcolm had to stop and swallow, plow past those waking dreams, to enter the morgue. Formaldehyde. Sweet and cloying. Most would wrinkle their nose at the smell. Malcolm sniffed, a….what could he call it…sense memory suddenly strobing in his mind’s eye.

The girl in the box.

Except, why here, why now? She didn’t smell. 

The tremble in his right hand traveled up his arm to his shoulder but he shook it off.

Damn. How did he know that? Because he did. Unequivocally. He’d never linked the two before. She hadn’t been dead long, and The Surgeon never used formaldehyde on his victims.

That was psychological and emotional fodder for another time, another place. He squared his shoulders, walking in, and was almost plowed down by a teenager in baggy jeans and a lab coat.

“Sorry!” the boy exclaimed, dodging Malcolm to race down the hall with two others in his wake.

The usually silent and orderly morgue was loud with chatter and giggles. An active group of young people were bending over two bodies displayed on gurneys. All were decked out in white coats and latex gloves. They barely looked up when he came in, concentrating on their devices before consulting the corpses for clarification.

“Edrisa?” Malcolm asked, looking around. The stink of embalming fluid was overwhelming, and more than a bit sick-making the closer he came. He was intimately accustomed to dead bodies but most he examined exuded the pungent odor of decomp—an equally nasty stench .

“Bright!” She popped up suddenly from behind the open door of a tall fridge, a huge grin on her face, glasses halfway down her nose. “Just a moment!” She backed up, arms piled high with Petri dishes. “Their instructor went out to her car to get more supplies,” she explained, handing a dish to each student.

Adding to the cacophony, the original three young men, and a woman in her mid-fifties with a long gray braid down to her waist, returned carrying boxes and books.

Malcolm shifted out of the doorframe to escape the melee, particularly as the air in the hallway, while still quite strong smelling, had a cross wind from the door on the south end.

“Thank you, Dr. Tanaka,” the instructor said, turning to her class. “We really appreciate this opportunity to get a look at a real investigation would be like.”

“We’ll clean up spotless!” the guy in the baggy pants assured. 

“Isn’t it great?” Edrisa beamed at Malcolm, her dark eyes merry. “A whole new generation learning forensic pathology. I never had such hands-on experience.” Shoving her glasses up her nose, she joined him the hall. “I didn’t expect you. I’m not working on any cases you’re involved in, am I?” She looked briefly horrified to have forgotten such a thing. 

“No, no.” Malcolm chuckled. There was no way to feel morose or bleak when confronted with her enthusiastic optimism. “I came to give you something—but was surprised by the smell, and wondered if you’d stumbled on a case without me.”

Edrisa giggled, sounding like one of the kids in the morgue. “Takes me back to my freshman anatomy classes.”

“This is a college course?” Malcolm peered at the closest two students. Surely they were in high school? He suddenly felt very old at the age of thirty. Which brought him to his primary reason for coming.

“They’re all in medical school.” She nodded with a wide smile, clearly reliving good memories.

“Happy birthday!” he proclaimed self-consciously. Malcolm wanted to be a people person, he really did but this was totally out of his element. Would she think he was coming on to her? 

He and Edrisa had enjoyed an easy friendship. Two like-minded people: on the subject of serial killers, that is. And he was well aware that she had a crush on him. JT and Dani teased him endlessly about her dewy eyed gaze when he was around. But his heart was set on another. 

“Dani and I were on Facebook, going over the posts made by the suspect in the last case for the report, and the birthday reminders popped up.” He fished a small bouquet of fancy cherry lollipops tied with a pink bow out of his pocket. “Dani would have brought them but she had to go to court.”

“You remembered my favorite flavor!” Edrisa exclaimed. “This is so nice.” She glanced back at the class engaged in their lesson, clearly trying to make a decision. “They’ll be here for two hours…” she paused and took a deep breath. “Doyouwantto gotolunchwithme?”

He had to insert spaces between her words to process the sentence. “Oh, eat?” That could be a fraught issue. He usually wanted to eat, but—

“Just in the cafeteria upstairs, nothing fancy. You’re busy, I’m sure,” she said hurriedly, starting down the hall almost at a run. “Just ignore I said—“

He’d burst her balloon without even trying. “It’s your birthday. Of course I’ll come.”

She stopped abruptly, pivoting with a nervous smile. “It’s Tuesday, they have very good tacos.”

“I could do tacos,” he agreed, catching up to amble along beside her. Without a murder to discuss, he was at a loss. They went up the wide staircase almost in lockstep, silent.

“Who is your favorite serial killer?” she asked curiously, glancing at him with a sweet little smile.

“Besides The Surgeon?” he quipped, feeling on far more solid ground. This was a subject he could expound upon all day long.

“Goes without saying.” Edrisa held the candy bouquet close to her chest. “Not that I ever want to…admire the atrocities serial murderers perpetuate but—“

“Most of them have unique skill sets which can be fascinating to study,” Malcolm finished for her. The air in the stairwell was redolent of old tobacco smoke, and unless he missed his guess, a whiff of pot, as well, but so much better smelling than the formaldehyde scented morgue that he wanted to practice his pranayama breathing exercises to expel the chemical.

“Exactly!” Edrisa held up a finger, tapping the air. “Their minds just don’t think the way ours do, right?” 

Maybe not like hers. Malcolm suspected his own brain was far more like his father’s than he ever wanted to admit. He found the men and women who committed these crimes so absorbing he’d made it his career to profile them. That couldn’t be the product of a healthy mind.

“I mean, the elaborate presentation of the Black Dahlia—admittedly, not done by a serial killer as far as we know,” she went on excitedly, “and then the complete opposite with murderers such like Bundy or the Green River Killer who dump their bodies in remote locations.”

“Uncovering the reasons for their perversions is the key to unlocking the crime,” Malcolm said, repeating what one of his Criminal Justice professors had once said. The explanation had made a lot of sense, except how did that pertain to his own father? What were the causalities that turned brilliant Dr. Martin Whitley into the killer of twenty-three—and quite possibly more—victims? Malcolm knew very little about his grandparents or his father’s upbringing. The Surgeon was one of the few murderers he hadn’t delved deeply into. And what exactly was the reason for that? As another of his professors, this one a psychiatrist, had said, “Every action has a consequence.”

“So true,” Edrisa nodded vigorously, her glasses sliding down her nose again. “It’s such a shame that some we’ll never know. Have you watched the series _American Ripper?”_

“Jack the Ripper came to the US?” he asked, fascinated and aghast. Why hadn’t he heard of this?

“Bright!” she said, pushing through the door to the cafeteria. “You have to watch this one. Brilliant doesn’t even begin to describe it. Possibly deluded and…” she shrugged good-naturedly with a laugh, “compulsively obsessive, but I understand the compunction.”

“So what does this have to do with Jack The Ripper?” he asked, joining the line for make-your-own-tacos. Each customer was given a pre-formed crisp taco shell on a plate, then the servers doled out shredded chicken or beef, along with cheese, diced tomatoes and avocado. A serving of refried beans finished the meal. For Malcolm, who found it quite a chore to decide what to eat, this was a Godsend.

Edrisa took beef, he chose chicken, plus a bottle of fizzy water for each of them. Because of the busy buffet, she hadn’t yet answered his question by the time they sat down at a nearby table.

“Another aspect of why I suspect you’d enjoy this series…” she began, crunching into her taco before continuing. “Is that the host of the series is directly related to H. H. Holmes.”

Utterly fascinated, he took a bite of taco as she spoke, the jagged shards of crispy shell poking his hard palate. Far too similar to being stabbed with a sharp knife. Best to eat the rest of the filling with a plastic fork. He gulped and swallowed. “The first acknowledged serial killer during the Chicago World’s Fair?”

“Exactly.” Edrisa nodded, clearly pleased he knew the specifics. 

“He had descendants?” Malcolm marveled. He’d truly never thought much about others with connections to known serial killers. Many of the most famous were either unmarried loners or had no progeny. Although, now that he thought about it, the BKT murderer from Wichita had a wife and family. Maybe Malcolm should start a serial killers’ offspring group. Yeah, when he’d sufficiently dealt with his own neuroses.

“This man is the great great grandson of Holmes—which isn’t his real name, did you know that?” Edrisa quickly ate some beans.

“I did.” He’d read up on most serial murderers in his teens and early twenties, fueling in own innate fascination with the macabre and sinister. It had gotten to the point where he didn’t any longer. A sign of growth? He hadn’t worked that out yet.

“Anyway, he manages to link the facts there are about Jack the Ripper with Holmes in an attempt to show they were one and the same—“

“Does he prove his hypothesis?” Malcolm had given up eating, washing down his last bite with sparkling water. Planned to binge watch _American Ripper_ once he got home, unless there he was called to a crime scene before then.

She playfully waved her fork in his direction. “You’ll have to watch to find out. Oh, look who just showed up.”

 _Gil._

“You need me?” Malcolm asked, weird joy sparking in his chest. Real mutilated corpses beat out historical televised ones every time.

“I need a taco.” Gil Arroyo pointed to the dwindling line of diners at the taco bar. 

“I need to do paperwork.” Edrisa unwrapped a cherry lollipop, giving it a lick. “Thank you, Bright,” she called, leaving gaily.

“First time I’ve seen you down here on Taco Tuesday,” Gil observed from his place in line. Because he’d come in so late, he was served immediately, just before the staff began clearing away the food. Gil carried his plate over to the table, standing beside Edrisa’s abandoned chair.

“Edrisa’s birthday,” Malcolm said, poking at the remains of his meal as if still hungry. He’d have done anything to remain there as long as Gil sat down. It had occurred to him on more that one occasion that it wasn’t passion for murdered victims that roused him when Gil called, but the man himself. 

Gil Arroyo: tall and distinguished, with his mustache and graying beard, and those compassionate dark eyes. Malcolm wasn’t sure when his own feelings toward the man had changed, but since joining the NYPD major crimes team, he’d imagined Gil touching him, holding him close, and kissing him. This was recent, and while it had taken some getting used to, he realized he wanted it very much. Was he brave enough to broach the subject? Or simply pine silently, which was decidedly much more his MO.

“You and Edrisa?” Gil asked pointedly before chomping on his taco.

“No!” Malcolm recoiled, belatedly aware he was reacting too strongly. Really, though, Gil wouldn’t find that at all unusual. Overly dramatic was his middle name.

“Didn’t think so.” Gil snorted, wiping crumbs off his mustache. “She’s crazy about you.”

“We have similar interests.” Malcolm shrugged, “but that’s as far as it goes.”

“And Dani?” Gil bit and chewed more taco, eating his entire serving in record time.

“No.” Malcolm had to admit there was some attraction there, on both sides, but the impetus was lacking. “You want the rest of mine?” he offered, pushing over the plate of beans and broken taco pieces.

“You sure?” Gil caught his eye, holding it for a long beat as if assessing Malcolm’s mental state.

For most of his life, Gil had been one of the few people Malcolm could tolerate looking straight in the eye. As a child, he’d just been soothed by the gentle kindness, now he had a totally different reaction.

He met his friend’s gaze, seeing Gil’s pupils dilate from the connection. Or was it anticipation of more taco? 

Gil often dropped by Malcolm’s apartment for a late night drink, particularly after a case. What would be the harm in inviting him when they hadn’t been conferring over a bloody body?

“Edrisa was telling me about a true crime series linking Jack the Ripper with the American serial killer, H. H. Holmes from the 1880s,” Malcolm said.

“And here I thought American serial killers started with that guy who made lampshades from his victim’s skin,” Gil deadpanned, finishing off Malcolm’s leftovers.

“Ed Gein?” Malcolm wrinkled his nose. “He’s one of the more perverted—“

“More than other mass murderers?” Gil grinned savagely. “It’s a fine line, Bright.”

“Major Crimes’ docket is clear today,” Malcolm said lightly. “Want to check out a couple episodes of _American Ripper?”_

“As long as I bring the whiskey.” Gil nodded. “Sure to be a drinking game imbedded in a show like that one.” He raised an imaginary glass in a toast.

“It’s a date.” Malcolm raised his own invisible shot glass, clinking it silently with Gil’s. 

Fin


End file.
